Wedge

Something tells me I should really rewatch that scene...

ok... just saw the second of the new series....

On the one hand, I liked it, a lot...
on the other hand, Matt Smith's frenetic doctor is really starting to wear on me....

Saw it tonight and it was a fun episode. :D

Yeah, I can understand that.

What strikes me is that he's playing it like Troughton. Or, more accurately, he's playing it like Troughton, except what Troughton would have done in 4 25-minute episodes, he's doing in a single 45 minute episode. Compressed brilliance, you might say.

On the other hand, it is a little different to Tennant's legs in running/piston mode every 5 minutes. And it's better than hearing "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" every other episode, which grated on me.

It's also possibly a sign of something bigger. He knows what's coming, and "we almost possibly have a chance" to fix it. This is the eleventh hour (pun completely intended :P) for the Ponds. Something big is happening and he's trying to stop it.

I didn't... Well, it had a couple of interesting ideas (not that much really), a handful of amusing jokes (nothing worth a LOL), the robots were the best parts, probably because they felt like they came from Douglas Adams.
Other than that... Too many friggin' plot holes for me. And I'm not one to scream at plot holes... It just didn't make sense overall. Things like, "okay you have control of the ship but we're still going to shoot the ship because we can", or "let's ride that slow Triceratops, it's certainly going to be more efficient than just running while dodging these lame laser shots from the dumb robots..."Same here -- except it's been the same since series 6 for me... I just can't take any more of that Doctor. He's supposed to be the same doctor, but where did our Tennant go? I know the Doctor has on occasion killed, but in such a cold-blooded way? Nope, that isn't the Doctor I know... He's always trying to be fair, even with the villains.

Anyway... It was far, far less interesting than last week. To me, it was the worst episode since season 5's Victory of the Daleks, and season 3's Daleks in Manhattan. And without any Daleks to help? Congrats!

That wasn't a plot hole. By the time the Doctor had control of the ship, the missiles had already fired. They were already in flight on their way by the time that happened, so it wasn't about 'we're still going to shoot the ship', it was 'we've already shot at it, the bullets just haven't got there yet'.It was running faster than they could...No, he's not supposed to be the same Doctor, that's the point. This Doctor is more vengeful than the previous one. From his point of view, this is righting a wrong in the only way he can: the mercenary slaughtered thousands of Silurians who were defending the dinosaurs and whatnot. He can't bring them back, but he can deal with the mercenary, and protect the dinosaurs so that the Silurians' sacrifice was not in vain.

Tennant was basically summed up in School Reunion:Thing is, that's still there. Except that he is less inclined to issue the warning if the transgression has already occurred.What about the Daleks? The Cybermen? How many thousands of them has he slaughtered? (And make no mistake, we are talking slaughter.)

What I find interesting is the writer. That episode was written by Chris Chibnall, who also wrote the Pond Life mini-series, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood (from series 5), 42 (from series 3). 42 is possibly even more mediocre than Victory of the Daleks - if an episode is memorably bad, that's one thing, but if it's unmemorable entirely, that's possibly even worse.

It was also deliberately meant to be less interesting than last week. It is intentionally not a story arc episode, it's a fun episode.

Oh, he has killed before... and we've seen him go completely mad several times, even in the old serieses but more recently with Ecelston and even Tennant. However, Smith is a truly vengeful doctor... Look at how his acted toward the folks who kidnapped Amy... or the ships who tried to put him in the pandora box.

Oh, that's new. Never been angry before.

I sort of chalk that up to never having been that emotionally invested in his companions like that before. It's sort of like the reaction he had during The Idiot's Lantern, after Rose's face was 'stolen':I see it as a continuation of that, except this time it's his fault. The Wire was not down to him, but the whole thing with Madame Kovarian, the Silence, the whole fact they had kidnapped Amy, the whole Melody Pond setup was solely because of how dangerous he is.

That's really the one colossal difference between Tennant and Smith's Doctors... Ten ran round the universe, seeing what there is to see. He encountered things that he didn't like, and he dealt with them. But mostly it was a reactionary thing.

Eleven on the other hand is a little less reactive and a lot more proactive, and mostly that's down to the fact that he feels responsible. He feels responsible for everything that's happened - because he *is* responsible. It weighs heavily on his mind, and a lot of the nervous energy is overcompensating."Your voice is different, but the arrogance is unchanged." - Davros, The Stolen Earth.

Eleven is clever, probably cleverer than Ten was, if that makes sense. He sees the plan beyond the plan, except not the plan behind that. The entire Pandorica setup was a very clever trap, but it was so well designed that he didn't realise it was a trap until it was too late, mostly because of his arrogant insistence that the Pandorica was a myth.

The way he dismissed the Alliance was mostly to buy time to actually get to examine the Pandorica, not to actually make them go away - he knew full well it would merely buy time, "That should keep them squabbling for half an hour", not realising they were all there together anyway.

In reality that's just feeding into his ego, and under other circumstances he might have realised it was a little too easy to make that happen.

- I do remember 42... And I did enjoy the episode. A bit like 'Sunshine' and all...

- What I'm saying is that the Doctor never gets mad against villains unless they did something truly worthy of his wrath. Okay, the guy killed hundreds of Silurians -- and we know Silurians are usually a peaceful people -- but he didn't see him do it. From his point of view, all he knows is that he tried to kidnap Nefertiti and sell her as a slave or something... And he's so old, he couldn't do anything worthy without his robots' help. He really didn't strike me as worthy of such a revenge from the Doctor. I like my Doctor vengeful, believe me. I just think he should be vengeful in really, really exciting situations. Like when he snapped in Waters of Mars, things like that...

- Eleven is only as smart as Steven Moffat can be... :lol:

This one is more 'I like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are cool. And this guy wants to SELL them.' I suspect the death of thousands of Silurians is only part of his wrath.

Oh, Waters of Mars was awesome. "Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? *Me!* It's taken me all these years to realize that the laws of time are *mine* and they will obey me!"

Yes, Eleven is only as smart as Steven Moffat, however, Moffat the puppet-master is far more devious than RTD as puppet master.

Devious? As in deviant?

Okay, I'll accept the explanations for the Doctor's wrath etc... There are enough elements to justify it, even though I think he's going over the top. (And it's a kid's show originally, remember?)

No, devious as in shrewd, evil-genius mentality, twisting and turning before we get to the end.

It may have been a kid's show originally, and you know what? A kid would appreciate that. Kids like dinosaurs, and that man is trying to sell them?!?! He's going to have to pay for that!